On Learning, Creating & Spirit-Clothes
Oh the stories we tell ourselves…
When was the last time you questioned your long held beliefs about yourself?
When I was in second grade I struggled to learn how to read. As I hesitantly read aloud, my teacher, Miss Short told me that I was stupid. I know this because another student’s mother heard her say it and she told my mum. Miss Short either implied or outright told me how stupid I was that one day for sure, and possibly many days that followed. I can’t really remember. What I do remember is the zebra puppet I made using a paper towel roll and paper maché. I remember painting that zebra. I can picture the table I was sitting at, the sink by the window, the way the paper maché felt and smelled. I remember how shiny and well done my puppet was, it totally looked like a fifth-grader could have made it! I remember many art projects from that year and years to follow as specifically as I do that zebra puppet.
The other thing I remember about second grade? That’s the year I started truly believing I was stupid, and there is not a moment that went by from that year until I was at least 45 years old that I didn’t fully and completely believe in my stupidity. I used to say “I’m smart enough to know how stupid I am.” I took the “stupid” label and sewed it right into my spirit-clothes. A label I was deeply ashamed of. I continued to sew labels into my spirit-clothes many of which I was ashamed of and actively tried to battle against. All the while, sewing more ugly labels in and onto my spirit-clothes.
Second grade was also the year I discovered my love of creating. Creating was like a salve, it brought me both joy and self-worth. I proudly adopted and stitched the label of Artist on the outside of my spirit-clothes. This label came with some preconceived notions about what being an artist meant, which I either observed or was told somewhere along the line. The words that stood out to me when I was young were: wild and free, spontaneous, bold, outspoken, reckless, messy, carefree. It was a long time before I began to question more carefully what being an artist meant to ME.
A lot of time has past since second grade for me. I started to appreciate and love reading around tenth grade, I learned to love writing some time in my early twenties and about twenty years following that I began to question my long held belief that I’m not smart. This has been a slow evolution for me. I scrapped the spirit-clothes I stitched when I was young. After all, I was using someone else’s pattern. I started a new set of spirit-clothes using a pattern I designed myself, and I know this set will fit me so much better because of that.
